Yulin Zhang

Yulin Zhang is currently the researcher in the research project "Urban-Rural Assembly" at the chair of landscape architecture and planning at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. The URA research project takes the Huangyan-Taizhou region as a case study to examine the impact of dynamic urbanization processes on surrounding rural areas (https://urbanruralassembly.com/en/about). Her core research interest centered on the interpretation of dynamic cultural landscapes as expressions of conflicting and interrelated perspectives between traditional culture, religious practice, and modern values under the drastic transformation of rural societies in a rapidly urbanized China, and the associated distinct social and spatial (re)constellation. In her master's thesis in Media Architecture at the Bauhaus, she has discussed the reconstruction of the landscape cultural heritage in a hollowing-out hinterland village "Taihe Zhang", as the basis for her informed and contextual design intervention (master's thesis 2018 "Wild Grass: Inspiration Hostels in the Wildness: Rebuilding Culture with Architecture"). Prior to this, she received her bachelor's degree in Environment Art Design from the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts of Fudan University. Her work ‘Rebirth’ won the ‘Special Prize of the International Jury’ in the competition of ‘Public Environmental Art Design of the Shanghai Zhenru Sub-Center’. In addition to working on the research project, she was successfully applying for a "Bauhaus-Startstipendium" for the winter semester of 2019/2020 to start her doctorate with the topic “Ancestor Shrine Landscape in the Context of Social Transition in Rural China: Case Study in Chizhou City and Taizhou City” at
the Bauhaus University Weimar.

Her study focuses on how the Chinese ancestor shrine and together with its surrounding landscape have been (re-)evaluated and (re-)configured in different rural communities in the current Chinese urbanization dynamic, and characterizing its similarities and diversities via a cartographic interpretation, in which to reveal the hidden layers of landscape in terms of religious culture, traditional meanings, social values, political power, and meanwhile to get insight into the local knowledge and method of managing their space and place, in light of this, to describe a desirable transformation of the rural landscape, and explore potential strategies for the sustainable urban-rural development. This study argues that the ancestor shrine can't be regarded as a single architectural object but rather a central part of a cultural landscape that is constantly being reconfigured by the inhabitant's daily practices. Under the state-led drastic rural social transition, that is, numerous villages have been merged and relocated under the label of "Building a New Socialist Countryside" to increase the "land quota" for urban development, the ancestor shrine landscape as a social constitute cultural landscape has great potential for improving the living environment of the rural community and support community identity-building. It is not a monument of the rural cultural past, but rather a manifestation of consensus within a community that involves participation and communication that vividly represents the mechanism of establishment of new social and spatial orders in rural China.

Rural Heritage

Cultural Landscape

Ancestor Shrine

Ancestor Worship

Clan Culture

Community Identity Building

Village Relocation/Resettlement

Interpretative Mapping